Starting a Franchise While Still Employed: You Can’t Predict the Future, But You Can Prepare for It

How one franchise owner’s unexpected career transition changed the way I think about preparing for career uncertainty

How do you plan for a future you can’t predict?

I asked that question at the beginning of a recent conversation with Sheena Gladden, owner of CoolVu of Delaware. By the end of our conversation, I realized that perhaps the question itself needed to change.

Maybe we can’t plan for an unpredictable future, but we can prepare ourselves for one.

That distinction matters, particularly at a time when professionals who have spent decades building successful careers are discovering that experience, performance and loyalty don’t necessarily provide the security they once assumed they would.

Sheena knows that firsthand.

When the Traditional Definition of Security Changes

She spent approximately 25 years in IT, building a career across different positions, companies and industries. Like many of us, she entered the workforce with a fairly traditional understanding of career security: find a good company, work hard, develop your skills, climb the ladder and build a future.

Over time, she watched that model change.

Layoffs had been occurring within her company for several years, and although Sheena still had her job, she recognized that eventually she could be the one affected. What I find particularly interesting about her story is what happened next.

She didn’t wait until she was laid off to begin thinking about another option. She started preparing while things were still okay.

Starting a Franchise While Still Employed — Before the Crisis Arrives

Sheena had thought about business ownership for years, but like many aspiring owners, she wasn’t interested in walking away from a successful career and immediately giving up her income.

When she began exploring franchises, one of her requirements was very specific: she wanted a business she could begin building while continuing to work full-time.

Through a franchise consultant, she was introduced to CoolVu, a glass and surface solutions franchise serving residential and commercial customers. The model gave her an opportunity to begin learning an entirely new industry while maintaining her corporate career. Her son could also work in the business, allowing Sheena time to understand customers, develop processes and get her feet wet before making a full transition.

The plan was fairly straightforward: build the business alongside her career, learn, prepare and grow. Then, when the business was ready, leave corporate America on her own timetable.

Except life rarely follows our timetable.

Franchise Ownership After a Layoff: When Plan B Becomes Plan A

The layoff eventually came.

After approximately 25 years in IT, Sheena was told her corporate job was ending. What she said next during our conversation surprised me.

She was excited.

Not because losing a job is inherently exciting, but because by the time it happened, Sheena had already spent the previous year learning her business, improving processes and preparing financially. She was no longer standing at the beginning of a decision wondering what she should do next.

She had somewhere to go.

That is a very different experience of uncertainty.

Sheena couldn’t control when her employer would make its decision. She couldn’t know how long it might take to find another comparable corporate position, and she certainly couldn’t predict what the employment market would look like when that day arrived.

But she had taken steps to create options before she needed them.

Security and Control Aren’t the Same Thing

One of the most powerful observations Sheena made during our conversation was that she no longer wanted to depend entirely upon a company to provide her security. She wanted to begin creating more of it herself.

I think there is an important nuance here. Business ownership is not inherently secure.

Customers leave, economies change, competitors enter markets and costs increase. Business owners face risks that employees may never have to consider. I know that firsthand as a multi-unit franchise owner.

So I would never suggest that entrepreneurship is a magic shield against uncertainty. It simply changes the nature of the uncertainty and, in some cases, gives us greater influence over how we respond to it.

Perhaps what Sheena was really building wasn’t certainty at all. It was agency.

She was creating another path, developing new skills, building an asset and giving herself choices that did not depend entirely upon the decision of one employer. That is a much more useful way to think about preparing for career uncertainty.

The Advantage of Exploring Before You Have To

There is another part of Sheena’s story that deserves attention, particularly for anyone considering franchise ownership.

Timing matters.

When someone begins exploring business ownership after losing a job, the emotional and financial dynamics can be very different. Suddenly, there may be pressure to replace income quickly. A severance clock may be ticking. Funding options can change. A decision that deserves careful research can begin to feel urgent.

Urgency and good decision-making are not always great partners.

Exploring while you are still employed doesn’t mean you need to buy a business. In fact, after researching the options, you may decide business ownership isn’t right for you at all. That is still valuable information.

The purpose of exploration is not to manufacture a predetermined answer. It is to understand your choices before circumstances force you to make one.

From Waiting for Certainty to Preparing for Uncertainty

This conversation felt like a natural continuation of another recent episode of The Franchise Fit. I sat down with financial planners Alex DelCollo and Brody Scott of Diamond State Financial Group to discuss the hidden cost of waiting for certainty, when making major life and business decisions.

There is an interesting connection between those conversations.

Waiting for certainty assumes that eventually we will have enough information to know exactly what will happen.

Sheena’s story illustrates something different.

She didn’t know exactly what would happen. She prepared anyway.

Preparing for career uncertainty doesn’t require assuming the worst, quitting your job or rushing into entrepreneurship. It can simply mean becoming curious about your options while you still have the freedom to evaluate them carefully.

If you’re thinking about what your own future might look like, there are some questions worth considering:

• What kind of work do I want to be doing five or ten years from now?
• How dependent is my financial future upon my current employer?
• What skills have I developed that could transfer into business ownership?
• What would I need financially before I could realistically consider owning a business?
• If my carefully constructed Plan A changed tomorrow, would I know what other possibilities exist?

You don’t need to know all of the answers. The value may simply be in asking the questions before you urgently need them.

What Sheena’s Story Does (and Doesn’t) Tell Us

Sheena’s experience isn’t an argument that everyone should buy a franchise.

It is an argument for preparation.

Franchise ownership happened to be the path that fit her goals. CoolVu gave her an opportunity to enter an unfamiliar industry with training, performance coaching and a network of other franchise owners she could turn to for support.

For someone else, the right answer may be a different franchise, an independent business, acquiring an existing company, changing careers or remaining happily employed.

The goal isn’t to make uncertainty disappear. It is to understand enough about yourself and your options that uncertainty doesn’t automatically leave you without a direction.

You May Not Need a Plan B. You Need Options.

By the end of my conversation with Sheena, I came back to the question we started with:

How do you plan for a future you can’t predict?

Maybe you don’t. You prepare, by building skills, understanding your finances, exploring possibilities and asking questions before you urgently need answers.

Then, if life takes an unexpected turn, you may discover that what looked like uncertainty also contains opportunity.

Sheena couldn’t predict exactly when her corporate career would end, but when it did, she could say something very few people facing an unexpected layoff are able to say:

“I was ready!”

Watch: A CoolVU Franchise Owner’s Story

Hear my full conversation with Sheena Gladden, owner of CoolVu of Delaware, on The Franchise Fit: How Do You Plan for a Future You Can’t Predict?

Exploring What Your Options Could Look Like?

If you’re thinking about business ownership (whether because you’re actively ready for a change or simply wondering what another path could look like) you don’t need to have the answer before we talk.

A Franchise Fit Conversation is a place to explore the questions first: your goals, finances, lifestyle, experience and what you want your next chapter to provide.

No cost. No pressure. Just a conversation designed to help you understand your options and make decisions from knowledge and understanding.

Schedule a Franchise Fit Conversation

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